sickness unto death

"You know what I want to do?" she says.

She's looking at me with her chin thrust forward, munching with her spoon poised midway from a bowl of her cereal. Her hair is down around her ears.

"What?" I ask her, though I don't want to.

"I want strawberries," she tells me.

"What, on your cereal?" I ask.

"No," she says, letting the spoon fall down into the bowl; milk splatters. "I don't mean on my cereal. I want to eat strawberries...I want my own bowl full of strawberries. I want to eat strawberries until I get sick on 'em."

Later the next day, she comes back from the grocery with a bag that holds four five-pound boxes of strawberries, the plastic boxes that snap open and closed and make a hell of a noise either way, so that when she is downstairs taking a shower and I try to open one to snag a berry for myself, she can hear it and comes shunting up the stairs, wrapped in a plush towel and her hair dripping, and says, "What the fuck? Those are for my column!" I've already eaten half of it and I hold out the other half to show her. She pushes me aside and takes the bag in her fist and parades back down the stairs with it. She probably took it in the shower with her just to be safe.

It's going to be hours, so I go out to take a walk. I meet Denny and we stop in at the Sunset and pretty soon it's four o'clock. Sometime in there, Denny asks me, "What's she on today?" I tell him, "Strawberries. She woke up out of a bowl of cereal last night and said it was strawberries. Until she got sick on 'em."

"She got sick on them?"

"No," I correct him, "she wants them until she gets sick on them."

"Hmm," says Denny.

When I go home, she's got maybe eighteen bowls crowded on the counter, and even though it's only her in the kitchen, I can't get in there, not even for a glass of water.

"How's the strawberries?" I ask. "Are you sick on them yet?" I see two empty boxes.

"Almost," she grins at me. "Want to try?" She holds out a spoon full of some kind of lavender pink soup. She dips it into my mouth. "Well?" she asks.

"It's all right," I say.

"Fuck that," she says, crashing the spoon into the kitchen. "It's dynamite. It's for my column."

I shrug. "It's dynamite," I say. "Can I get a glass of water?"

She swings back and forth from the cupboard to the sink and hands me a glass of water, not looking at me but absorbed in a stained notebook that has been waterlogged and crisped and lost and sat upon so many times that it's nearly a pulp. I drink my water and wish I could go out again. Maybe I will, I think, in a few minutes.

That night she grills some meat with cheese on top, for the pair of us, and chews her portion up as if she's working a sausage factory inside of her. While she eats, she's typing on a little computer at her left hand, with glances at a glossy magazine spread open at her right.

"What's that?" I ask her, turning the mag toward me when she's engaged with the computer. "S'that food pornography?"

I've never called it that to her face before; I've only thought it privately. She looks up at me indignantly, then down at the page.

"It's Moira Miller's column in Saveur!" She stabs her index finger at the page. "She's writing about zucchini!"

I swallow. "All right," I say. She goes back to typing and reading, one of each, and spooning her food in her mouth all the while, meat and cheese. One of each, mixing together in her meat-grinder mouth.

She stays up late. I go to bed, watch the television for a while, but I end up reading a book instead, even with the television on. It's just the way I am. When I wake up, she's flat on her back, her chin tilted up and her eyelids resting peacefully on her cheekbones. I get up and get myself ready to go, but as I'm about to leave I stand over her and just look for a moment. It might be a good while, actually. I don't know. I don't know why I do it.

It's quite a shock to find her name in the newspapers the month after. She wrote a column that held some disparaging opinions about the cookbook of some super-chef, and suddenly everyone wants her number. The New York Times speaks with her over the telephone. She is asked to appear on a show where a gang of famous women argue about things. And she comes home after each engagement on a rant, going over who argued with her and how she answered them, sure that the audience--whoever it was--was on her side in their heart of hearts, though her opponents tried to pull them away and sometimes seemed to succeed. She doesn't make much food. We eat a lot of cereal together, as she pencils notes in her appointment book for her engagements and arguments on the day to follow. She chews cereal as if it were gristle, her jaws like pistons in an engine.

"Hammer and tongs," I say to myself.

"What?" she demands.

"Hamburger songs. Like that old Miracle Whip advertisement. You know the one. You should throw a bit of that in your speech. Loosen things up."

She doesn't look up at me. "That's a mad idea."

"It doesn't seem right to me, their making you work so hard just for one thing you said about a baker. Why have they got to keep after you so?"

"I want to work hard!" She looks exasperatedly at me. "I want them to keep after me!" She stares at me for a good while.

I shrug. "It's only food," I say, wondering if I ought to apologize.

She slams the covers of her book together. "That's where you're wrong, Nick," she says, standing up. "It's not 'only food.' It's life. It's sustenance. It's sin, and sensuality. It's comfort in times of loss and an anchor for memories and traditions. It's the centerpiece of celebration for every culture on earth. But never mind all that--it's also my passion!" As she strides back toward the bedroom, she throws up her hands. "I don't want it to loosen up!"

Her speech the next day sets them all on their ears. I read about it the day after, in the Dining section. They quote the same line she gave me at the table that night, right down to the "never mind all that, it's my passion" bit, which apparently brought a number of onlookers to their feet, clapping.

I meet up with Denny at the pub and show it to him. He holds his hands up to me, warding the paper away.

"Don't show me, already saw. She'll be moving from Dining to the front page, soon." He pushed toward me the g-&-t he'd ordered in advance of my arrival, and he signaled the bartender for a lager to follow it. "Quite a tempest in a teapot she's blown up, isn't it?"

"She said all this to me the other night," I said. "This bit, here--this line."

Denny read it over.

"Hm!" He grinned. "Wonder if she writ it up after she said it to you, or before."

I rubbed my chin and thought it over.

"Was she always like this?" Denny asked me.

"Like what?"

Denny held up his hands again. "Sorry. Never mind. Forget it."

"No. Like what?"

He looked at me, his chin propped on his fist.

"Passionate? Oh, yes," I said. "A go-getter, from the first time I knew her. No one like her."

"But, I mean...was she this crazy about food, Nick?"

"About..." I stared at him. "Food?"

"Yes, Nick. Food. This stuff, that's got her so riled up now that you can hardly talk to her." He stabbed his finger at the newspaper. "Was this always on her mind in the same way?"

"Well! I can't say." I thought hard on it.

"Oh, come, Nick. It can't be that hard. Did she or didn't she go a little mental about zucchinis and braising and such like when you first met her? When you were dating?"

I guess I was silent for quite a time.

"I don't remember," I said. He didn't believe me, I could tell. "I never thought about it. It was just... If she was, I suppose I'd have thought it was just a young girl with an appetite. Her mother couldn't cook, that's for damn sure. I don't know where she'd have got so crazy about it, as a girl. I just don't remember."

She's already in bed when I get home, sitting up, writing things in the margins of the day's paper. I don't mention anything about it; I start to take off my shoes.

"Mad, this," she says. "It's clear whose side this reporter's on."

"Were you always this crazy about food?" I ask her. She looks at me. "I mean, was it always your passion? All your life?"

A smile drifts across her face, and she looks at the wall dreamily.

"I don't know," she says. "I haven't thought about it. When it all came about. I think it must have always been there. I don't remember just when it became...what it is." She stared at the wall for a few more moments, then went back to working at her notes.

I leave off changing my clothes and went back downstairs, half in my pajamas. There was a plate of cookies on the table but I know better than to touch them. I pour a glass of milk, set it down there, and I sit at the kitchen table and I stare at the two of them for a bit. Then I drink down the milk, slowly, so that it won't bother my stomach. When I go back upstairs, the light is on but she has fallen asleep, half-propped against the headboard of the bed.

The next morning the cookies are gone, and so is she, since before I got up. There is a note on the table where the plate had been, reminding me that she is going to Westchester for a convention and will probably be back around eleven at night, and telling me not to take the cold chicken out of the refrigerator for my lunch. I pick up the note and hold it there, under the light that swings over the centre of the table, wondering that I didn't hear her as she got up and made ready to leave--I'm a light sleeper.

I lose track of time and arrive late for work. One of the fellows shouts, as I come in, "Rebecca's making quite the stir, isn't she, Nick?"

"She is that," I answer, taking off my coat.

"Ought to watch out for her. Those cooking persons can be brutal when crossed."

"Brutal?" I ask, not quite listening.

"Yeah! Haven't you ever watched 'Hell's Kitchen?' That fellow looks ready to pound anybody's head in with his fry pan, if they cross him. He says some godawful things to the cooks on that show."

"It's notorious," says another fellow standing nearby. "I worked as a waiter for years, and so did my brother. They'd tell stories I never believed as a kid, and then I saw for myself."

"Stories about what?" I ask him. "Manslaughter? With a fry pan?"

He shakes his head. "Kitchen knives. Threatening each other, you know. And sex! They did it in the bathrooms, in the pantry, in the freezer, on top of the bar when the place was closed for the night--but they'd do it in full view of the staff. Rails of cocaine off the counters..."

I walk up close to him. "How'd they get to have sex inside a freezer?"

He looks at me pityingly.

"It's a walk-in freezer, Nick. Like a closet, but cold."

All day I think about her up in Westchester, being threatened and pawed by avaricious men and women in their white double-breasted jackets and little ascot scarfs. It made me almost frantic. I desperately want to call but I don't know where she is likely to be, a hotel or a restaurant or a club. Who knew? I think of her going into this vicious, predatory world on the steam of her single-minded passion, and I think of them all trying to corrupt her and wonder how long she would last against them. I think of coming home to her suddenly preoccupied with something else, besides food. Perhaps she'd be nursing a wound from a meat cleaver or a potato masher. I think of her sitting there at the table, pressing a bandage to her shoulder. I would take it from her and help her with it, and I would say, "Who did this?" and she would say, "Gordon Ramsay." I would say, "He's a bloody maniac," and she would answer, "No, Nick. He's right enough. You just have to know how to handle his rages. He's taught me more in a month than most people learn in a year." And I would say, "I worry about you." And she would say, "I'm all right. It's a terrific chance to work with him. I don't mind the little scratches and things." I would say, "I mind."

I rather hope she will call me from the convention, but she doesn't. I go home and look around for something to eat, but all I can find is milk and cereal and a few potatoes. She likes to do the shopping as well, and only buys what she needs. I toy with the idea of making something from scratch--there is certainly no shortage of flour, sugar and baking powder. But I don't want at all to make myself a batch of cookies or anything of the sort. I want hers. I search again, now a bit desperate, for something she may have left behind; breadcrumbs she has frozen for future tempura, burned cookies she might use for crumbling into a cheesecake crust or on top of puddings, morsels that she might have saved for later analysis of what went wrong with the recipe. I rifle through the cupboards; I know how silly it is. But I can find nothing. She has grown too skilled. She no longer has accidents.

I sit at the table and drink one glass of milk after another. The swinging light reflects a lemon-hued ball on the surface of the liquid. I watch it quiver there, looking for minute after minute as if it is on the verge of melting. Something suddenly splashes into it and destroys the placid surface. I reach up to my face and find a wet, sticky trace reaching down the side of my cheek. I have wept; I am weeping.

Quickly, I stand up, seize the glass, and throw back the rest of the milk in one gulp. I charge out of the kitchen and into my car, forgetting to bring along my coat, as I realize when I am halfway into town. I only think of going back for a moment. I have to get to Westchester, and can't afford to lose a moment.

I'm not a cautious driver at the best of times. Now I am squealing in and out of lanes, dodging as best I can past the sluggish dregs of rush-hour traffic. Did everyone leave work late today?, I wonder. But I feel the fire in my belly, and I know I won't be stopped, that I will get to her, that I will keep her safe, even if she does not understand what I'm there for. Even if she doesn't want me there in spite of understanding. My only prayer is that the police are busy with things other than traffic monitoring, this evening. In a mood such as this, with such a mission in front of me, I might strike a cop.

People wail their car horns protestingly at me as I swerve into their lanes. I curse the day I chose an economical town car over something with a four-wheel drive. Traffic is locking up; I have no choice but to slow down, more than once. There must be an accident of some kind nearby. I wonder if that means policemen. I narrow my eyes to spot them before they spot me. God, what time is it? I glance toward the car's clock, but it is stuck at 2.28--it has been for months. I look for my watch but my sleeve is covering it. I flick my wrist impatiently to swing the watch's face toward me.

I hear a horn protesting me again, then several horns chorus in with it. I look up--perhaps we're approaching the accident. But there is only the deathly fast approach of a minivan bumper toward my windshield. I can see a child's face staring out at me with numb terror. I carve the steering wheel to the left and I feel my jaw lock into place, my face closing itself down in preparation for assault. The back end of my car fishtails against the minivan; the impact sends me thrashing like a fish as I careen through the road's flimsy guardrail and nosedive into whatever lies on the other side.

My eyes open on an expanse of dark blue poly-blend fabric, encompassing my whole field of vision, which seems to have narrowed alarmingly. A great pressure is against my head. It feels as though my jaw is gripped in a vise. There is a sound, only one sound, that comes and goes at regular intervals. It is like the ticking of a clock--has it begun working again?, I wonder. Something suddenly slides across my field of vision, narrowing it further. It spreads out underneath my cheek. After a moment, I can feel it slide down into my pants. I try to move my eyes to find my bearings; the movement hurts abominably. I hear a noise, an inchoate, muffled roar, but nothing happens. I leave my eyes where they are, but somehow they have found a point of contact, a source of light. There is a long, shiny slick extending from my face, and as my eyes adjust, I see that it is deep and assertive in color, like strawberries macerated in wine.